The Seduction of Elliot McBride

Chapter 9

Juliana let out her breath again, little by little. “Mr. Archibald Stacy was the lady’s husband?”

“Stacy was a Scotsman I helped settle on a plantation. I’d known him in the army, given him some training. Stacy came to me when he resigned his commission, and I helped him find a plantation near mine.”

Juliana knew from Ainsley that after Elliot had left the army, he’d become a planter, and then made a business of showing other Europeans how to live and prosper in India.

“We were friends,” Elliot went on. “Stacy had a Scottish wife, a young woman he’d gone back to Glasgow to marry, but she grew sick and died within a month of their arrival.”

“Oh dear. Poor lady.”

“Illness can take one swiftly in India,” Elliot said, not without feeling. “Stacy grieved, then took a fancy to an Indian woman called Jaya.”

A courtesan, Juliana supplied silently. She knew that respectable young women in India were ferociously looked after to prevent them having out-of-wedlock affairs with European men—with any man, for that matter.

“It was a casual affair,” Elliot said. “And I…had an affair with her too. But Jaya fell for Stacy. She feared he had no true affection for her, was using her to soothe his feelings. So, to move things along, she told him she preferred me, packed her bags, and arrived at my house. Stacy was incensed and came to fetch her back. I don’t think he realized his affection for her until she left him.” He turned the goblet with stiff fingers. “When I returned to the plantation after my capture I found that Stacy had married Jaya, she’d borne a child, and she was dead. Stacy had abandoned Priti, and Mahindar and Channan had taken her in. I paid them for Priti’s upkeep, including what expenses they’d incurred while I’d been gone. Priti was just old enough that the lady could have started her when I was taken.”

Juliana tried to decide what to feel. First, jealousy, her failing—a large, painful dose of jealousy. In her mind, Elliot had always belonged to her, ever since the ten-year-old Elliot had kissed her cheek in order to slip a frog into the pocket of her pinafore.

She’d been willing to marry Grant because she’d known it would be useless to pine away for Elliot, who’d preferred India and adventure to this tame side of the world. But the fact that Elliot had gone to this unknown woman, that he’d been willing to do so, burned in her heart.

Second, pity—for Priti, left alone and not understanding, and for Elliot, who’d returned from a horrible ordeal to find the woman he’d had a child with dead. Anger at Mr. Stacy for abandoning the little girl no matter whom she belonged to.

“Is Mr. Stacy still alive?” Juliana asked.

Elliot shook his head. “I don’t think so. He left his plantation and went to Lahore, according to Mahindar, and Mahindar heard that he died in an earthquake there.” Elliot sloshed more whiskey into his goblet. “I told you, not a pretty story.”

“You are correct. Not for young ladies in a drawing room.”

“It is in the past. Gone.”

“I know.”

Elliot drank the whiskey and returned the glass to the table, obviously intending to say no more.

“Well,” Juliana said briskly. “Priti is a sweet girl, and I’m happy we can provide a home for her. I will have to look into clothes for her, and a governess, and we must make certain a nursery is put in order for her. Nandita is kind to look after her for now, but Priti should not live like a servant.”

“She doesn’t.”

Juliana set down her knife and fork exactly parallel across her plate. “What you mean, my dear Elliot, is that she lives the way you do, which means a bit rough. I don’t intend to break her spirit, if that’s what you fear, but she does need to learn manners, and English, and a good many things.”

“I’ll ask her,” Elliot said with a straight face.

“You should begin acknowledging her as a McBride right away, so that there is no question how you view her as she grows up. I warn you, it will not be easy for her, having an Indian mother, but we will do our best to smooth her way.”

“Thank you.”

The quiet gratitude sent a shiver down Juliana’s spine. Not Priti’s fault at all that she was the daughter of a courtesan two men had loved. The jealousy prickled again. Juliana would have to decide what to do about that—the affair had been so far in the past, after all. That Elliot had planned to take care of Priti no matter whose daughter she turned out to be mitigated the jealousy a bit.

“Yes, there is much to be done.” Juliana took refuge from her emotions, as always, by organizing. Organizing was such a comforting thing. “Not only for Priti, but for us as well. As soon as we are able, we must pay calls to everyone in the area. It’s our duty, and also our duty to host a gathering, perhaps on Midsummer’s Eve. That will indicate to the neighbors that we plan to settle here, and are not simply city dwellers looking to spend an idle week in the country. We’ll have a fête, and a ball. I shall have to find out what fiddlers to hire and where to obtain the food, which will all have to be local, of course. Perhaps you could…”

She noticed that Elliot had frozen in place, staring at her with an unfathomable look.

“Elliot?” she asked quickly. “Are you all right?”

“I don’t do well around people,” he said in a hard voice. “Not anymore.”

No, he didn’t. She’d seen that already, even with his own family. “That is the beauty of having a wife,” she said. “You have to do nothing but stand looking laird-like and letting the whiskey flow. I shall have to greet everyone and make sure they’re entertained. Trust me, much better for us to endure such a thing for a few hours than be talked about up and down the countryside. Don’t worry, Elliot. I will take care of it.”

She had no idea, Elliot thought, how absolutely beautiful she looked at this moment. Her blue eyes were shining under the light of the candles, her hair glistening as she moved her head. She talked rapidly and gestured with her plump hand, so happily dooming him with neighborly calls and a midsummer fête.

Easy to confess to the world, even to gentle and proper Juliana, that he’d sired a child on Jaya, who’d kept him warm when the cold winds came off the wall of mountains separating northern India from the world. Easy to admit he and Stacy had shared her between them at first.

That sin was so far removed from the terrible nightmare of being captured and displayed as a prize. So far removed from what the men of that fierce tribe had done to him, and had taught Elliot to do for them. He’d experienced slavery firsthand, when a human life was considered less important than an animal’s—when the whole of his history, from birth to present, meant nothing.

Elliot also couldn’t explain to Juliana that when he’d been their prisoner and slave, he’d forgotten all about Jaya. His time with the woman and Stacy, his years at the plantation, his friends there and in the army might have never existed. The only person he could hold on to, the only face he saw, was Juliana’s.

Juliana kept on chattering about the fête and jumble sales and conferring with the minister’s wife, but Elliot couldn’t hear her words. He was aware only of her voice, clear like a fall of rain.

He pushed aside the whiskey he drank too much of these days and rose from his chair. Juliana looked up at him in surprise, because of course a gentleman never left the table until the lady decided it was time for the women to retire to the drawing room.

Elliot reached the end of the table and pulled Juliana’s chair back. As she looked up at him in astonishment, he lifted her out of the ridiculous throne-like chair and set her down on a vast blank area of the table.

“Elliot, I don’t think…”

Elliot silenced her by kissing her. He drew his hands up under her heavy coil of hair, fingers loosening the silk of it.

In the dark cells he’d imagined this, remembering the soft of her hair when he’d touched it the night of her debut ball, before he’d shipped off the next day to join his regiment. He’d recalled he exact shape and touch of her lips from that brief kiss, the scent of her rose-soft breath.

She’d sustained him in the dark, and now he needed sustenance again.

Elliot drew his tongue across her lips, touching the moisture behind them when they parted. Juliana’s hands came up to cup his elbows, fingers sinking into his biceps through his coat.

He kissed across her lips, every inch of them, then moved to her cheek, kissing the skin he had the privilege to touch. In the darkness, in the pain, the memory of her kiss had wound comfort through the agony. She’d never know—he never would find the words to explain—how many times she’d saved his life.

I need you.

Elliot moved to the shell of her ear, brushing it with the tip of his tongue. Juliana made a soft noise in her throat as he closed his teeth on her earlobe.

He was seducing her again, but she’d seduced him every night of those months he’d been lost. He’d longed each day for the torture to cease, for his captors to ignore him for stretches of time, because then he could sink into a stupor and be with his visions of Juliana.

They never could make Elliot forget her, because they didn’t know about her. Her name had never crossed his lips. Juliana was his secret, his soul.

And now she was real.

He sucked her earlobe gently into his mouth, liking the way she shivered under his touch. He loved the scent of her, the taste of her, and he’d never be able to have enough.

Elliot kissed his way back to her mouth, one tiny kiss at a time, until he opened her lips and stroked across her tongue. He loved her tongue. He trapped it with his teeth, then he gently suckled it.

Juliana made another quiet noise of pleasure, and Elliot kept suckling, liking the friction, taste, and heat of her mouth. He let her go and reached for the whiskey decanter, pouring more into his goblet.

He touched the goblet to her lips until she took a little into her mouth, then he plunged his mouth across hers and scooped up the whiskey with his tongue.

Her eyes were soft when Elliot drew back. “What are you doing?” she asked.

“Savoring you.”

“Oh.” Her flush, the little word, made his body tighten.

Elliot touched the goblet to her lips again. This time Juliana sipped then closed her eyes as Elliot imbibed the whiskey from her.

Again and again he slid the best McGregor single malt into her mouth; again and again, he drank from her. He was a man dying of thirst, and Juliana was his vessel.

When the goblet was empty, Juliana smiled up at him, her blue eyes warm, her hair mussed. “You’re going to get me tipsy.”

Elliot kissed her one more time without answering. He skimmed his fingers down her throat, bare for evening, the creamy silk bodice hugging her shoulders and bosom. Female fashion had always baffled him—ladies were buttoned up to their chins during the day but décolletages might barely cover their nipples at night.

All the better for him. Elliot unhooked her bodice in the back and took the half sleeves down her arms, revealing the bow at the top of her corset, the coy lace of chemise beneath that.

Juliana’s father was a wealthy man, and Juliana wore rich clothing, all the way down to her skin. The silk of the bodice he parted caught on the rough tips of Elliot’s fingers, the lawn of the corset cover smooth and embroidered with silk flowers.

Elliot loosened the corset’s laces and pulled them out, opening the cage and lifting it away. The chemise beneath billowed free, its lawn folds as soft as the gown’s silk.

Easy to untie the ribbon holding the chemise closed and slide it down, bunching the fabrics of chemise and bodice at her waist.

Juliana watched him more in curiosity than trepidation as Elliot poured another measure of single malt into the goblet. He lifted it to her and trickled whiskey across her collarbone, the amber liquid trailing down to her bared breasts and abdomen.

Juliana gasped. “Elliot, my gown…”

Elliot barely heard her. He leaned down to her, licking the whiskey from her skin, following it to the heat between her breasts. He tasted and drank, closing his mouth over her breast to suck.

He left marks where his teeth and tongue had been, decorating Juliana’s bosom. She’d have to wear higher-necked gowns now, but Elliot didn’t care. She could wrap herself in a sedate package that she unwrapped only for him.

He licked her clean, slowly easing her backward onto the table, until she lay on the tabletop, her small bustle squashed to one side, her skirts rucked up.

He upended the rest of the goblet, lifting it high so the whiskey splashed down on her. Juliana squealed, then laughed.

She stopped laughing when Elliot leaned on top of her, licking, tasting, kissing her lips before moving back to lick every droplet from her breasts.

He paused at her nipples, light pink brown against her creamy skin. He scooped up the droplets there, then closed his mouth over each nipple in turn.

Juliana clung to the edge of the table, her legs parted around Elliot’s hips, a wild feeling building and building inside her. She felt it most between her thighs, but the hot tingling under his mouth made her almost as insane.

His eyes were half closed, his brows drawn in concentration. The hand over her right breast was scarred and hard, the back of it crisscrossed with scars and sun-streaked hair.

Juliana stroked the hair on his head, liking how the bristly ends caressed her fingers. He was more beautiful now, she decided, after being banged about and repaired, than he had been in his untouched youth.

Elliot raised his head, his eyes a flash of hot gray. His next kiss pressed her hard onto the table, Elliot coming full length on her.

He kissed her thoroughly, every stroke of his tongue, every caress of his lips deliberate, taking. Juliana chased his tongue with hers, wanton and not caring.

Just when she thought he’d back away, perhaps help her dress enough so they could go upstairs, Elliot pulled her upright by the wrists. He took her all the way off the table, standing her against him, while his hands went to the back of her skirt.

“I want this off,” he said. “All of it. I can’t touch you with this stupid bustle in the way.”

Juliana fumbled with the catches that fastened her bodice to her skirt, overskirt to underskirt, skirts to bustle.

The bustle itself Elliot loosened with impatient jerks to the hooks, and Juliana knew she’d be sewing them back on again later. He dropped the wire form to the floor, where it settled with a clatter much as Hamish’s bagpipes had.

Next came the drawers; easy to unbutton and slide off. Now Juliana was bare, in her dining room, exposed by the light of the few candles. She still wore her stockings, white silk tied with silk garters, and her favorite beaded slippers.

Elliot set her on the table again. His hand went to his waistband, and he unpinned the yards of tartan that wrapped his waist, to reveal himself hard and fully extended beneath.

He spread the plaid on the table behind Juliana and lowered her onto it, then he scooted her hips to the edge of the table, positioned himself, and slid straight into her.